I have no idea of relative weight comparisons. I just give my experience of "average" needed lead for a male, drysuitdiver, europe, wintertime, D12 steels, BPW... Basically, the standard in scandinavia with the same tanks varies from 3-4kg to 6-7 depending on bioprene, musculature, insulating layers and so on. So, from my experience, if you start with 6-7kg with 2-3kg being droppable/removable you should not be horribly overweighted, yet not underweighted, and should be able to do a dive, have fun and be able to finish your dive with a nice little dumping of gas to about 30-50 bar and do a proper weight check with the 2-3 removable kg. (The reason for keeping them on your left waist band... to have them easily accessible so you can take them off one by one to give to your dive buddy) Keep in mind that within average dive times (and depths) you WILL be overweighted for the most part of your dive if you weigh yourself for 30-50bar left in the tanks.Thanks Imla, I dive in a neoprene drysuit and only have a single set of garments. However, no cold issues in 4 degrees celcius water except for the hands .
With my current single tank, I wear 2x 4kg pockets, and a 7kg belt, in total 15kg.
Since all that changes is going from single tank BCD to double tank wing with backplate, I'm more interested in a 'relative' comparison instead of absolute numbers. Compared with the bcd, how much weight would I be realistically able to drop?
Imla, you're suggesting dropping 7.5 (or 8) kg for now?
I expect that in the near future I will switch to a trilam suit (my neoprene is old and is showing small cracks in the outer surface already, but for now I'll go with it until it dies.